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rain. starting a new scarf (b,'s got finished last night, and i'm lazy about the other projects), the cast of bridget jones II was on oprah - i should say "colin firth and some other people who don't matter were on oprah", waiting on some work stuff - some short term, some long term, need to give the dog a bath, wanting to travel, b. looked hot for work this morning. just stuff.
let's talk about you instead. how are YOU?
i know the pics are down. i'm not sure WHY the server has been down for almost a week, but it has. i haven't had the wherewithall to deal with moving so many images to a new server.
work is, well, work. i'm tired now. the first 9 hour day in months... at least there's no commute.
1) new cheap wool blend for socks, and about 12 rows of first socks.
2) the growing poncho which will have some groovy green mustachio around the bottom when done.
3) the scarf i'm making for himself out of yarn unraveled from my first knitting project, started in 1988 and never finished.
4) dark brown debbie bliss yarn, which i've started the yarn harlot poncho with several times and had to start over just as many.
5) pele the cat.
6) himself.
it's a rainy day. good for spending most of it lounging and living through the aftermath of friday night.
my bucket of projects is slowly growing. the pic above is just the travel bag sub-section of the larger pile. oops, and i forgot to include felting projects in the above. aside from the knitting there are three felting projects going. a little dry felted flowery thing, sewing up sweaters that have been intentionally very felted in the washer and dryer into bags, and a big bag of alpaca wool from mardella's mom which hopefully will turn into a scarf over the weekend.
i had to stop at a new (to me) yarn shop yesterday. and suddently it was almost 3 hours later. i was good. i only got cheap yarn to try my first pair of socks with. i started this morning and had to un-knit after accidentally switching directions on the double points. oops. now i know how to un-knit reasonably well.
anyway. it's a nice cozy saturday. maybe it's time to make a fire in the fireplace.
In solitude we are in the presence of mere matter (even the sky, the stars, the moon, trees in blossom), things of less value (perhaps) than a human spirit. Its value lies in the greater possibility of attention. If we could be attentive to the same degree in the presence of a human being …
- Simone Weil
O suns and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather.
- Helen Hunt Jackson
It is comforting when one has a sorrow to lie in the warmth of one’s bed and there, abandoning all effort and all resistance, to bury even one’s head under the cover, giving one’s self up to it completely, moaning like branches in the autumn wind. But there is still a better bed, full of divine odors. It is our sweet, our profound, our impenetrable friendship.
- Marcel Proust
sometimes life gets analog and getting on here to make entries seems like something to do later. that's kinda what it's been. i haven't been reading blogs much either. i try, but what it boils down to isn't so much needing "me time" (cross reference horrid woman on tv - wife swap) as needing analog time.
and my analog life has been pretty darned busy lately. which i like. making stuff, knitting, felting, reading about knitting and felting... haha... the dog park, etc. i find that making things that don't live on the computer is really theraputic for me. so, that's where i've been. still here, just doing other stuff. and getting really excited about even more projects.
side note to not working over the summer: it was great, and MEG you'll be proud of me. i actually use the library now. granted, for the stuff i want i'm something like 68th place in the queue, but i haven't gone out and bought *any* of the $25-60 books i want.
anyway. freelance stuff is going well, and i'm hoping that will settle into a good constant thing with the company i just started with. it would be a dream job on so many levels.
and after a couple of drinks and dinner last night brian and i came up with a book idea. i can't tell you anything about it because i haven't seen anyone do anything like it and y'all know that once you verbalize an idea it's out in the universe and someone else will think of the same thing within a month. so i have to get busy writing sample chapters and outlines and stuff, and get it off to a publisher (fingers crossed on having a contact at said publisher).
barbara i will mail your package soon, maybe today. shelley, i have not forgotten you, and you too will be rewarded.
in an amazing feat of self-restraint i only spent $8 and change at the yarn store yesterday. there were SO MANY YARNS i wanted. my rule is that i have to have a project for any yarn, but i'm quickly sliding off that horse. so, for the moment, i just picked up felting needles and some roving to play with.
and that's really sort of how life is going. well, that and we played the closet cleaning drinking game last weekend. it involved tequilla and big bags of stuff to go to the thrift store.
just because i wanted to try, and because i saw other people on the web doing this, and because i'm on a BUDGET, i thought i'd make some nice large wooden knitting needles for chunky scarves and those large gauge projects. and lo! it worked beautifully.
AND it worked out to less than $3 a pair. these would be a super-swell gift too.
it's a lot easier if you have a couple of power tools and know how to use them. or at least how not to hurt yourself.
power tools:
* bench grinder (you could manage without this if your dowels will fit in a pencil sharpener, but mine were bigger)
* power drill
supplies:
* hardwood dowel (note: i used walnut for one set and cherry for the other. both used the same endcaps. 36" dowels were $2.69 and $2.79 for walnut and cherry respectively.)
* wooden screw hole buttons (the things that cover the bolts on wooden furniture for instance - i got a bag of 10, 1/2" in walnut for $3.59)
* sandpaper - 220 grit. $.59 a sheet. you really only need one sheet.
* hammer
* 1" brad nails
* diagonal cutting pliers (also called dikes, strong enough to cut through the nail).
* small blade hacksaw
* nail setter (optional, and you can use a larger nail for this if you are very careful)
* wood glue
* wood wax. i had some "B's Wax" from when i got my maple salad bowl and it's the consistency of butter. it works great.
I made the two sets in about an hour and a half. The cherry took longer because they were thicker and cherry is harder than walnut so it took awhile to grind the points.
Process:
* cut the dowels to the desired length
* use bench grinder to make a point. you'll want to aim for a gradual slope on the point, to avoid a hard 'shoulder'. keep the sharp point on the needle for the time being. it's much easier to round the point by hand with fine grit sandpaper.
* sand two screw hole buttons lightly (so that the wax will soak in)
* carefully nail a 1" brad though the wooden button in the center from the top (dome side) down. before the nail is all the way in, cut off the head. nail the rest of the way and use the nail setter to tap it once to make sure it is very slightly deeper than the top of the wood. (note: this is really easy to do if you happen to have a little hole in your workbench that you can set the button over when nailing so that the nail just goes into the hole and you can set the button flat).
* sand entire needle and gently round the point a *little* bit. it's easy to lose your nice point, so go slowly.
* use drill with a very small bit to pre-drill the nail hole on the non-point end of the needle. note on this: it's helpful to make an x on the end and push a nail into the center and make a little starter hole so that your drill bit has something to grab when you start. drill the hole at least as long as the amount of nail you have sticking out the bottom of the button.
* put a tiny bit of woodglue on the nail (which will squish up between the wood as well) and twist the end you've made onto the needle. if your nailing or drilling was a little off, now is the time to gently straighten as you put things together.
* let the woodglue sit for a little while (10 minutes is ok since it's such a small amount).
* apply wood wax and rub in well.
you're done! i've seen ends made with fimo/sculpey, but i was thinking that you could nail (in the same process as above) beads or coins or any other clever tiny thing on the end. don't pick anything heavy. (here are some others i made)
more notes on wood: the walnut might not be strong enough to use for needles that are too small. white oak is much stronger due to cellular structure. the cherry is pretty hard. if you choose a wood which you are concerned about (strength) there is an oil/polyurethane sealant which actually strenthens the wood as it cures (dries overnight, cures for a couple of weeks). that's about $6 for a half pint.
the dowels i used ended up being roughly size 14.5 and probably 19. but great for quick knitting. the wood was from rockler woodworking and hardware.
there should be something to say. something interesting. but mostly things are just rolling along. last night at purlygirls we had a conversation about blogs and why people do them and why people read them. i suspect the reasons are as varied as people. the only one that makes any real sense to me (acknowledging that there are thousand others) is the sense of community that gets built. i've had my 'invisible friends' since about 1989-90 when it was just .edu email on usenet. some part of it pleases me. i've made good friends around the world. it's being connected. it's how b. and i met, which i couldn't be more thankful for. and i'm used to having friends that i may or may not have met in person.
but for most people there's probably no good reason at the end of the day.
On the what-i-do-with-my-hands-in-the-afternoon front - 2nd babyhat is almost done (another half an hour of i-cord). then i will start on the harlot poncho probably. as well as hats for kids having chemo - a little project i'm starting with some of the purlygirls. the other night when i was trying to teach mardella to knit (trying because it's the first time i've tried to teach someone to knit) grace was watching and said "what *happened*???". and because we have one brain i knew what she meant. i said "what... like 'who are you, you crazy knitting woman, and what have you done with the old rebecca'?" she laughed and said yes. it's a very autumnal thing. and it's always something i think about in the fall. and my mother is sending me all of her knitting stuff because she doesn't knit anymore really. so how could i not?
i'm pretty it's obvious by the length of this post that i have work to do (that i'm not doing). so back to that. but it's good fun graphic design stuff. and bonus that himself sent a nice fat file of the whole new citizen cope album, which is SO GOOD. damn.
one last thing. when we were hunting for art supplies (more accurately "shit to make other shit out of") at goodwill the other day, we found MONKEYBABY. (all of buck's stuffies are referred to as babies, however, MONKEYBABY was so darned big that he gets a big name). see below.
who needs ebay when there's mom? thanks mom!
